This new data download from October 2014 includes ridership from the five new Silver Line stations.

Over the past few years we’ve been making ridership data available for download and analysis by the online community. We have received some requests for full origin-destination (O/D) data sets that include the new Silver Line ridership.

These data sets include ridership from October of 2014, and are available by period (AM Peak, midday, etc.) or by quarter-hour interval, for all stations including the five new Silver Line stations. Both sets include daily averages for weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays and Columbus Day.

May 2013 and 2014 Metrorail ridership data is available: what patterns do you see?

Following up on our last data download of rail ridership from May 2012, 2013 and 2014 are now available. These data now represent three “snapshots” in time of rail ridership, at a very fine level of detail. This data can help answer questions, such as: where is ridership growth the strongest? Which destinations are becoming more or less popular? How has off-peak vs. peak ridership changed?

In general, Metrorail ridership increases on average by 7% on weekdays and up to 53% on Saturdays during the festival. On days with nice weather, ridership has increased up to 10% on weekdays and 70% on Saturdays!

As the figure below shows, during the weekdays there is no impact in the morning, a large (21%) increase of activity during the mid day and then a 7% increase thereafter.

Saturdays are another story all together. Ridership increases up to 63% during mid day and afternoon periods on days during the festival, with a total ridership increase above 50%. Even morning and “late” night ridership increases significantly during this period.

Now it’s time to talk about preliminary travel times between Silver Line stations. The map above illustrates the estimated travel times between the five new stations. These times are preliminary and may be refined after operational testing has been completed.

Below is a widget that can be used to look up the travel times between any two stations, including the five new Silver Line stations.*

Metro planning staff have been working to showcase Metro data in new and unique ways. We recently posted a visualization in a calendar format that displayed 9 years of rail ridership in one graphic. We are currently working on animations of ridership data as well. Below is our first volley into that arena, a visualization of one day’s worth of station-level activity in 15-minute intervals.

Before hitting play, please note the following:

The video is available in high definition (720p), which is the recommended viewing resolution.

The dots are sized according to total station volume (entries plus exits) per 15-minute interval.

The color of the dot represents what percent of the volume is entries vs exits. Magenta dots are 100% exits, blue dots are 100% entries, and purple dots are 50/50, with other colors representing ratios between these three.

The visualization is of data from April 10, 2013, which hit the 4th highest ridership mark that day. A combination of cherry blossom peak bloom and two sporting events ratcheted ridership up to 871,000 for the day, compared to an average weekday ridership of around 750,000. Note the high level of activity at the Smithsonian station all day long, and big dots that grow and shrink as the sports games begin and then end near Gallery Place and Navy Yard-Ballpark stations.

What other unique activity can you spot in this animation? What other types of animations of Metrorail and Metrobus would be informative?

PlanItMetro saw great interest in our last full data download of O/D data last year. We thought we’d provide an update with data from October of 2012. This enhanced data download contains the following files:

Metro is focused on solving one of the region’s most pressing mobility issues – increasing the capacity of the system to handle more trips through the core (defined below) of the Metrorail system. While Metro’s planning staff has been conducting technical analyses and searching for the best solutions for some time, we also asked for ideas for increasing core capacity from you as well as discussed the potential for new lines, new connections and expanding to all 8-car trains during peak periods.

There are also operational strategies Metro could employ to provide more trips on the rail system without expanding capacity. Among the various options is to promote and encourage more “reverse commuting” where commuters travel opposite the peak travel direction in seats that would otherwise be empty. Data show that reverse commuting has already increased over the past 10 years and many speculate that it will only increase further as the region builds more suburban town centers near Metro and as Metro begins operations on the Silver Line later this year.Read more…

Every day, Metro gathers a vast amount of information on how customers use the system – where and when they pass through turnstiles and board buses, how they pay, and more. There’s much to be learned from this data, and many in the pasthavedoneso. We’ve heard through MindMixer, Metro’s new online community engagement site, that more detailed ridership statistics would be useful. So in the spirit of open data and collaboration, here’s a data download of rail station-to-station passenger counts, by time period, by day of the week, for May 2012.

This data can answer many questions, such as: Where do passengers entering at one station go? Where do late-night riders enter the system? How does Saturday ridership differ from Sunday? Which stations are most commuter-oriented, and which are most lively at midday and evening hours?

What does this data tell you? Do you see any patterns? Feel free to post a link in the comments!

What other data that would help answer additional questions?

Technical notes about this data:

The data show average ridership, averaged across all days in May 2012, excluding Memorial Day. (We typically use May as an “average” month, since it falls in the middle of seasonal swings, is relatively unaffected by extreme weather, etc.)

Time period shows the time the passenger entered (not the time they exited).